


Instinct for Crime

by AJs Bunny (agentj)



Category: E.W. Hornung's Raffles series
Genre: Backstory, Class Issues, Fellatio (implied), M/M, POV First Person, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentj/pseuds/AJs%20Bunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raffles reveals the origin of his love affair with Sullivans—and his criminal instinct.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instinct for Crime

**Author's Note:**

> Written during my personal NaNoWriMo at the end of December, I had completely forgotten this lost treasure. I've rescued it and fixed it up to share with the world.

> ### Timeframe:
> 
> Told during Ham Common, but the action takes place before Raffles and Bunny ever met.

"Do you know why I only smoke Sullivans, Bunny?"

Earlier in the day, I had ventured out of our little cottage at the edge of Ham Common for various essentials. Among them was, naturally, Raffles's Sullivans of which he rationed for us as part of our "war effort." For myself, I indulged in chestnuts which I set about roasting. As I sat by the fender, Raffles smoked his one daily Sullivan and waxed poetic with the blue smoke curling round his form.

I smiled and wondered where to-night's lecture would take me. Over the past few years since our reunion, Raffles's tongue had become looser than days of old, and he shared his secrets almost as readily as the brothers we now poised to be.

"Because they're the best!" answered I, but I knew he would take it further.

"Of course, Bunny," said he as arabesque curls flowed from his mouth. "But they are also linked to my nature—and my profession."

Hearing the refrain that Raffles was about to embark on one of his lengthy tales, I made myself comfortable at his feet and awaited the drawing open of the curtains to his play.

"You see, Bunny," he began with a punctual flourish of knocking ash from his Sullivan, "I had known from the beginning my nature. Not of crime, of course, but for much more, shall we say, sinister tendencies. By the time I was twelve, I knew what I wanted—and how to get it.

"In my younger schooldays when I was a middle fourth—yes, Bunny, even I suffered through the humiliations of our alma mater—I returned home for the Easter holiday to discover my family had hired a young pernicious stableboy for the season. I myself found the youth anything but common. He was not yet of majority, but grown enough to have grown out of the awkwardness of pubescence. Like myself, it was obvious he was to become a man with specific tastes and desires. Unlike myself, he found himself unable to fulfill his needs due in part to his lowly station in life.

"I had discovered that our dear stableboy had a rather refined taste in tobacco. Namely for fine after-diner cigars and Turkish cigarettes. His meagre earnings would never allow him to purchase such sustenance like an honest man, so he sought other means to procure them.

"And that, my dear Bunny, was the beginning of my own seduction to crime."

The chestnuts were well roasted by the time Raffles ended his opening remarks, and we took a moment to crack open the delicious morsels and have ourselves a little feast before Raffles continued his story.

"My dear stableboy thought he would secure me as his man Friday in his efforts. In a surprising twist, I, too, had my own demands on his person upon payment of the goods, as it were. To say he was taken aback that someone as young as myself was worldly enough to make such demands was quite the understatement. But a mere moment of consideration, he found no compunction in the arrangement, and the thing was settled. I would meet him behind the stables with the goods, and I would have my just rewards."

As part of our own prearranged arrangement, Raffles passed his half-finished Sullivan to me, and I would be able to enjoy it after our fill, as once we would have enjoyed a good cigar cozied up by the fire at our old club. Alas, those days were gone for both of us now, but it was always his insistence that we would continue to enjoy the finer things in life as best as the Fates would allow.

I took the embers from his fingers and allowed the warm aroma to fill my lungs as he continued.

"You know me now as a confident and accomplished man in my trade, but as a mere wisp of potential back then, Bunny, I was the roughest diamond you ever saw! My first attempt was clumsy at best, futile at worst.

"I had steeled myself into my father's study and from his cigar case I had grabbed a little fistful. From his cigarette case that he had declined from carrying about his person, I had snatched my handful from as well. With both grubby hands occupied, I had ran most eagerly to meet my quarry and gain my ill-gotten treat.

"Oh, Bunny, how I remember the first thrill of adventitious danger this elicited in me. I can still see his insolent cool eye on me as I handed over the mostly ruined tobacco to him, and his scornful mouth when he asked for a light, and I had none. My pounding heart sank down to my knees when I thought I had failed in my venture, but he took pity on me, dear Bunny, and he let me have my reward."

As our shared Sullivan burned down to its stub, I listened to him mesmerized. How often I had felt as a sycophant following in Raffles's footsteps! Many times I had found myself lacking in my tasks as set out by my Raffles, but never had he punished me for my mistakes. Always had he given me praise and my just rewards for my efforts, no matter the outcome. There was some satisfaction knowing the origins of Raffles's lessons in generosity.

The sly upturn of Raffles's lips told me he understood. "Yes, Bunny, it was reward more than anything that drove me to better myself. If only many a pater of this country would take a page from my life's experiences, how different we would all turn out to be!

"It was the promise of more that drove the sinister instinct in me, Bunny. It was as if the potential of my being was always there, waiting to be chiseled out of the marble by this stableboy.

"Upon my second try, my instinct for crime seemed to come alive, for I had chanced upon the idea of emptying my little tin of army men and filling it instead with the promised tobacco. The repetition of the act taught me the coolness upon which I would work in later years. And as always, the promise of reward would fill me with the thrill of the whole adventure as if laid out eagerly by my feet."

At this, Raffles sighed with contentment and pride. His eyes held a faraway look of happy joys from days gone by; the thrill of the chase, the ever-present danger, and the excitement of success.

"Oh, Bunny, how natural in the world it was for me to sneak into that den, take what I wanted, and slip away undetected. Perhaps it was the criminal instinct in me, or perhaps it was the knowledge of what avarice awaited me, but time and again in those few days would I provide this service for that dear young angelic stableboy—for his hair was as golden as your own and his eyes like fresh-picked cornflowers.

"And the reward he afforded me!" His eyes narrowed as he looked upon me with wanton delight. "I daresay that until I had met you, I had never known a man to pack such a wallop!"

I blushed at Raffles's underhanded compliment. It was true that despite my small physical stature in many areas, one in particular certainly was not.

"And that was my downfall, Bunny," added he with a touch of sadness. "For my dear pater had caught on to his dwindling supplies and had determined to rid himself of the little mouse.

"I can't say for certain how he discovered me, but I suspect that he had been lying in wait behind a curtain in his den—apparently my own criminal intent had not fallen far from the original tree—but instead of confronting me there and then, he watched me depart and make my way across the grounds to the place of rendezvous.

"Perhaps he had seen this exchange transpire, perhaps he had not, but when the confrontation came, my father had a bottle of his finest claret in hand, and no doubt fortified himself with its contents upon approaching us in the midst of my reward."

I gasped. "Oh, God, Raffles! What did he do?"

"The only thing a good father should do, dear Bunny. He broke the bottle on the side of the stable and threatened the bugger to leave his employ immediately or else—with pain of death!"

Again I gasped. "But you, Raffles! Surely he did not blame you!"

Cold as ice, Raffles replied, "He did. He brought to bear his paternal right upon his son. Word was sent back to school that I had suffered a horrible riding accident and was unknown should I recover."

The cool deliverance of my dear friend's sentence stilled my breath. I had noted his utter intolerance to physical violence, especially the drawing of blood—namely his own. For whenever a confrontation took place in which Raffles had been cut and drew his blood, a sinister cool reserve would come over him, and he would act as possessed by the devil himself.

Even now as I watched, a storm brewed across Raffles's face as he fought with his emotions. "Yes, Bunny, I survived." The storm passed quickly, and the sunlight of his smile shined on me once more through the parting clouds. "However, it remained a bone of contention between my father and I."

Suddenly I understood Raffles in a way I had never understood him before. "He disinherited you!" I cried.

Raffles reached for another cigarette. Sadly, not a Sullivan but some inferior brand. He lit it. I was never entirely certain the snarl he made in the smoke was his disgust of an inferior cigarette or contempt for his father for taking away an inheritance that was rightfully his.

"The month before I came to my majority, he called me back into that tyrannical den—the only time he deigned to speak to me directly in all those years, Bunny—to tell me I was cut off from the money, the lands, and the family. The only thing I was allowed to keep was my name, the clothes on my back, and the footprint on my backside as I was shown to the door."

"But your sister!" I protested, knowing he had spoken kindly of her once or twice, though I had never met her.

"She knows, good rabbit," he smiled painfully through the smoke, "and she prays nightly for the redemption of my soul."


End file.
